Writing
There are a number of writing assignments in the American History class. They are designed to help students prepare for high school. They are also directed at challenging them to do more critical thinking, and to be able to bring in specific sources to support, or prove, conclusions they come to. There are a total of about fifteen written assignments. Twice during the year they do Person of Interest Papers, which are a series of twenty questions on an individual from a period on conflict in American History. They write two outlines during the year. These must be in sentence form, and in proper outline form, which is taught as a part of the class. There are also about four essay tests. The questions are taken from notes the eighth graders study and there are specific rubrics for answering them. These tests attempt to draw out logic, understanding of a topic, and higher levels of thinking. Proper sentence structure is demanded in all written work. Each trimester the students must select seven questions from their history book. This is one question from each chapter. They must write out the question and the answer. They must also state where they got the information from for their answer. Once each trimester there is an essay question given on a present day issue. Specific rubrics are given in the requirements for the answer. Finally, they do ten days of Current Events for each trimester. They write up a national, international, local, weather, and sports event for Tuesday of each week. They are encouraged to follow a story throughout the year because that is a more valuable learning experience. The newspaper U.S.A. Today is provided in class, but they do not have to use this as a source.